VARIETY IN FLOWERS OF EARLY SUMMER 25 



hanced a little by a cluster of single or double Gypsophila very 

 carefully used, or, in winter, by a touch of Steina or the graceful 

 Bouvardia, that flower now again in favor after a lapse of years. 

 The windows of our best florists in winter show the most en- 

 chanting companies of flowers together — deep purple pansies 

 with rose Ophelia for example, palest lavender sweet -peas with 

 roses of like hue; yet such suggestions will not do for northern 

 gardens. 



For the cutting of roses, prune as you cut; shape your bushes 

 as you use the shears. The o^Tier of a rose-garden is forced to 

 generosity; he does not care to see his flowers perish on the stem. 

 And here I must quote a delicious sentence from an English 

 friend on the subject of rose-giving: "When you cut roses to 

 give away, you cannot go wrong if you select those you would 

 prefer to keep, though this is a counsel of perfection and too 

 Christian for general practice." 



While the iris and the rose are perhaps the flowers of most 

 importance for the little garden's early summer moments, they 

 are accompanied by so many lesser beauties in flowers that we 

 can only name these and pass on. Here on the march down our 

 simimer borders are foxgloves and Canterbury bells; the lace- 

 like white valerian ; the noble peony in its present-day grandeur 

 of type and unbelievably beautiful color; earliest delphiniimis 

 such as Belladonna; early perennial phloxes like the Arendsii and 

 Miss Lingard; the hardy pinks with their sweet scent of spice, 

 their gray-leaved patterns in the garden — the list is endless, 

 and this mention must suflSce us here. 



If seed of annual poppies is sown the autumn before, they 

 may be counted upon for early summer bloom. One of the 

 pleasant international happenings this spring was the gift to me, 

 in a letter, of nine different varieties of annual poppy seed from 

 an English authority and friend. These to-day — early July — 



